McGraw Hill Boosts Dividend by 9.8% to 28 Cents

By Michael Aneiro

The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP) today announced a 9.8% regular quarterly cash common stock dividend increase, to $0.28 per share from $0.255, payable March 12 to shareholders as of Feb. 26. The move boosts MHP’s dividend yield to 1.955%, with shares gaining ten cents to $57.28 recently on the news.

“The Board’s action underscores the strength of our business and our bright prospects as we prepare to launch McGraw Hill Financial,” said Harold McGraw III, chairman, president and CEO of McGraw-Hill, in a statement in which the company also touted its 9.6% average compound annual dividend growth rate since 1974, and that it’s paid a dividend each year since 1937.

Amey Stone is Barron’s Income Investing blogger and Current Yield columnist. She was formerly a managing editor at CBS MoneyWatch, MSN Money and AOL DailyFinance. Her responsibilities included overseeing market coverage and personal finance topics. Prior to those roles, she was a senior writer at BusinessWeek where she authored the Street Wise column online and contributed to the magazine’s Inside Wall Street column. Topics covered included economics, corporate finance, Fed policy, municipal bonds, mutual funds and dividend investing. She co-authored King of Capital, a biography of Citigroup Chairman Sandy Weill. She is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.